How fitting that this weekend had back-to-back birthdays of two major comedians on The Simpsons who ad lib their lines; this causes the writers and artists to engineer the episodes around them. It works since Albert Brooks is pretty darned funny, if you have the first season DVDs, check out the audio outtakes. Hank Scorpio is his best character in the show’s 18 seasons.
Outside of animation and being imitated by Kevin Pollak, the movies of his that I’ve seen were great: Lost in America, Defending Your Life and my personal favorite Mother co-starring Debbie Reynolds. I haven’t seen the others, most people say they’re weak but I’ll get around to seeing them and then make up my own mind. Then again, his style of comedy is subtle and doesn’t hit you over the head as most do. His appearance in Taxi Driver was odd yet I felt he stole the movie in Out of Sight as a proxy for Charles Keating and the junk bond guy whose name escapes me.
I always knew his brother is Super Dave Osbourne and I know he’s not related to producer-director James Brooks, but I learned today that his real name is Albert Einstein. Changing his stage name was a smart move since it kept the casting people focused on letting him tell jokes or act instead of tempting them to say something “smart.”